NFL 2010

Yeah, I think it's predicted 6 out of the last 7 Super Bowls. The 7th probably being the Giants-Patriots one.

Anyway, I wanted to get other people's opinions on this article by Rick Reilly. I know that I can be said to be biased (for obvious reasons), but I feel like this piece is pretty objectively obnoxious, ignorant, self-righteous, and wrong. On top of being very bad journalism. This definitely isn't his first article I've disagreed with either.

You root for the Green Bay Packers in this Super Bowl because Steelers fans want their team to win but Packers fans need their team to win. They need it like air.

The football stadium can fit 72 percent of the town inside of it. One in every 54,000 Chicagoans is a Bears' fan, but one in 1,900 Green Bay residents is a Packers' fan. It says "Titletown" on the city seal. The Packers are Green Bay and vice versa. Their very souls are dimpled pigskin.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because most of the hotels in Green Bay are sold out for the game. Yes, hotels in Green Bay are sold out for a game in Dallas. "I got people from all over the country coming to watch the game at my bar," says Jerry Fowler, who owns Stadium View, the biggest tavern in town. "Packers fans just have to watch with other Packers fans. ... Last time we were in a Super Bowl, I came to open up in the morning and I had 1,000 people waiting to get in. At 8 a.m. I turned the lock and ran for it."

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because karma owes Brett Favre a very terrible Sunday for what he did to Packers fans; for what he did to the front office; for all the fake retirement press conferences and fake tears and fake posturing; for dragging Aaron Rodgers' career around through his own muddy whims. Rodgers deserved better and now he deserves this.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because Green Bay is the last little town to keep its team. You want it for Decatur, Ill., which lost its team to Chicago, and Portsmouth, Ohio, which lost its to Detroit, and Pottsville. Pa., which lost its to Boston. You root for the Packers for the same reason you root for Roberto Benigni to win the Oscar or Buster Douglas to win the fight. It's right.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because it's more than just Green Bay's football team. It's the blood in their veins and the asphalt under their tires. They drive down Lombardi Avenue. They speed down Holmgren Way. They park on Reggie White Way. They learn at Vince Lombardi Elementary and daydream of starring at Lambeau Field. And if they lose Sunday, there will be a line to jump off Ray Nitschke Bridge.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl for guys like the one on PackerForum.com writing about hearing his mom shriek downstairs and thinking she's in trouble and running down to find her in her robe and slippers shrieking in delight at the man standing in the doorway, Packers god Bart Starr, who had stopped by to drop off some gifts as thanks for the guy cutting Starr's lawn and shoveling his sidewalk this year.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because being a Steelers fan is a sickness but being a Packers fan is incurable. In Green Bay, Packers gas up where you gas up, pray where you pray, eat where you eat. The players are like family, which means they get yelled at a lot. "That's the thing that's a little different here," says All-Pro Packers linebacker Clay Matthews. "If you mess up here, the lady at the grocery store will let you know."

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because, at the end of it, they're not giving out the Noll Trophy, they're giving out the Lombardi Trophy. Nobody on Broadway is rushing to see the hit play Cowher, but they are rushing to see the hit play Lombardi. (Over the years, though, many have gone to the one about Troy Polamalu: Hair.)

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because Packers fans took a taunt -- "You cheesehead!" -- and turned it into a gouda thing. In 1987, Ralph Bruno, while upholstering his mother's couch in Milwaukee, burned holes into one of the cushions, carved a hole for his head and painted it yellow. Thus, the Cheesehead product line was born. In Green Bay, you can also buy cheese top hats, cheese sombreros, cheese ties, cheese earrings, cheese footballs, cheese bricks, cheese beer cozies, cheese sunglasses, cheese flying discs and, naturally, cheese fezzes.

Do they wear steel beams in Pittsburgh?

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because if the Steelers left Pittsburgh there would still be the Penguins, who won the Stanley Cup in 2009, and the Pirates. True, they stink, but Albert Pujols visits all the time. If the Packers left, Green Bay's major attraction would be the L.H. Barkhausen Waterfowl Preserve. But some people would still take Packerland Drive to get there.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because every now and then the game needs to have on top the little team nobody can seem to hate.

You root for the Packers in this Super Bowl because of Ouida Wright and her boyfriend, who never dreamed being homeless in Green Bay would be lucky. They were on the street when the Dallas Convention and Visitor's Bureau sent a "mystery" man out, waiting for someone to address him with the secret phrase: "Have you been to Dallas lately?" Wright heard about it, said it to the right guy and now she's going to the Big Bowl with her boyfriend. Hotel, tickets, flights--everything paid.

Yes, when they come back to Green Bay from watching the Packers play in the Super Bowl, they still won't have anywhere to live.

What's your point?
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http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6079827
 
I think Rick is merely expressing the sentiments of a lot of NFL fans who aren't fans of the two teams starring in the Super Bowl. In the end I don't really care who wins. I'm not going to be screaming my balls off during the game, rooting for a team I don't care about otherwise like the Giants-Patriots Super Bowl, but something inside of me would rather see the Packers win instead of the Steelers.

A lot of it has to do with the players on the Steelers. I don't think there are too many people who actually like Big Ben as a person anymore. He's a shady, sleazy little bastard who, not including his attitude or how he acts, just looks like a sleazeball. Whether he was convicted or not of those charges of rape and all that jazz, none of that matters, what matters is the public's perception of him, and as of right now it's not very good still.

Other players like Jerome Harrison who is universally hated because he's both an asshole on and off the field. He takes a lot of cheap shots on players and then bitches about it when he gets fined. I have a distinct memory of him from the Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl that I'll never forget; it involved him and a Cardinals special teams player where he just kept shoving the dude into the ground without allowing him to get up, over and over again, almost as if he was trying to beat his ass or something. And then of course there's that stupid comment about how he refused to visit the President, which is TRADITION for Super Bowl winners, because, "The president would have met with the other team had they won instead of the Steelers." Dear god what a putz.

Then you have guys like Ike Taylor who is notorious for being a headhunter (although it's hard for me to hate on him when I watch that Welker play, I fucking hate Welker), and Polamalu, who is a great player, but is slobbered on way too much and routinely gets exposed in pass-coverage because of his "instinct," and is just as guilty as anyone else in the league for cheapshots. And how could we forgot about Hines Ward? While I agree with a lot of his opinions regarding the way the NFL handles a lot of things such as player safety, he's just a dick. He's a cheapshot artist and I don't like it.

It's because of players like the aforementioned that I'd rather see the Packers win. I think the Packers organization was held hostage for a while, to include Aaron Rodger's career because of Brett Favre, and I think overall they're a likable group who, in my opinion, would be more deserving of the win.
 
I don't think the article is so far off, aside from the bit on Favre which is something that people just need to get over already. Say its just because I'm a life long packers fan, but it didn't hit me as overtly biased, but simply listing different facts that hold down many people as packers fans.
 
PhlegethonVeins said:
I don't think the article is so far off, aside from the bit on Favre which is something that people just need to get over already. Say its just because I'm a life long packers fan, but it didn't hit me as overtly biased, but simply listing different facts that hold down many people as packers fans.
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I didn't say that it struck me as biased, but it did strike me as incredibly dumb and off-base and far from resembling any sort of actual journalism, which seems to fall within Reilly's rich tradition of non-journalism journalism based on other articles of his I've read over the years. I don't see how an article like this from a sporting news agency would even be appropriate to begin with, but my main problem with it is the number of things wrong or misleading about it, or, well, just stupid. It also seriously calls into question the "fandom" of Steelers fans, which I think is in bad taste. Especially since babies born in Pittsburgh at this time of year are wrapped in Terrible Towels.

And Rick, I'm not going to get into a big response about what you said, but I just can't express how strongly I disagree with your categorization of those players (with the exception of Roethlisberger). I never hear you knock Bob Sanders, you know. And you were thinking of Ryan Clark, not Ike Taylor. Ryan Clark has never been fined in his career, by the way, and the league has even apologized to him in the past for throwing flags on plays that didn't warrant flags. The reputation of the team as dirty far exceeds the reality. That's all I'm going to say.
 
I agree with him actually. The fact that the Steelers are dirty isn't anything new. In fact, Hines Ward was voted by the players to be the dirtiest player in the league in 2009.
 
I know you agree with him. You think everything you don't like in all walks of life is bad and evil. Players are just like everybody else. They go with what everybody else says. It's entirely based on reputation. Cheapshot artists my fucking ass.
 
Dodens Grav said:
And Rick, I'm not going to get into a big response about what you said, but I just can't express how strongly I disagree with your categorization of those players (with the exception of Roethlisberger). I never hear you knock Bob Sanders, you know. And you were thinking of Ryan Clark, not Ike Taylor. Ryan Clark has never been fined in his career, by the way, and the league has even apologized to him in the past for throwing flags on plays that didn't warrant flags. The reputation of the team as dirty far exceeds the reality. That's all I'm going to say.
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Unfortunately for the Colts and their fanbase Bob doesn't play enough to warrant my anger with the way he plays, mostly because I sometimes forget he's even a member of the team. I don't like that he spears people and stuff at all. I like that he plays tough and plays every down as if it were his last, but imo cheapshots do not belong in the game, no matter who is doing it.

Thanks for the correction, yes I meant Clark. Not sure why I said Taylor. Either way, he's landed some pretty blatant headshots, and for that, I've lost all respect for him whether the league has fined him or not.

And you're probably right that I'm mischaracterizing these guys, but why shouldn't I? Even if they land a "dirty" hit one in a million times, if that one time is blatant then I have no other choice but to think they are a dirty player. Should I think they're completely innocent and have been wrongly judged? No, I don't think so. These guys have earned their reputation over a period of time, so it's going to be hard to persuade me into believing they're the victims in these situations.

Also, I don't think the whole team is dirty. In fact, I like quite a few Steelers players. I just think you're trying to defend the select few I've called out because you're a fan of the team, which is understandable.
 
WARNING: COLTS RELATED MATERIAL

There are several players that stand out, but the cases of Peyton Manning and Warren Moon are especially interesting. The Houston Oilers, unable to get past the Divisional round, were known as a team with a great regular season offense that continued to lose playoff games they should have won, while the Colts are viewed as a similar team despite winning a Super Bowl and getting to another. Both quarterbacks have very solid individual passing stats and team drive stats, but both have a losing record (Moon is 3-7 while Manning is 9-10). How can that be?

With respect to their defensive issues, field position and a lack of opportunities are two great answers for that. When you so often have games where the offense touches the ball 8-9 times, and has to go 75, 80, 85 or even 90+ yards to score touchdowns, you have to play at a very high level offensively to score a lot of points, and even the best offenses can struggle to do that in the postseason against the best competition. It has become common to see a scene like this in a Colts game as opponents try to play keep away to minimize Manning's opportunities.

Manning and Moon had the worst starting field position of these 24 quarterbacks. Aikman and Roethlisberger? Some of the best starting field position. Would the Colts and Oilers have won more games if they could get more stops on defense to get the ball back to their offense and in better field position? It would seem so, but in the cases of Steve McNair and Randall Cunningham, that would appear to be no guarantee.

...

You can see out of the experienced quarterbacks that Moon and Manning have the most drives starting at their own 20 or worse. No one started a higher percentage of drives in opponent territory than Steve Young, though Young did have the highest rate of drives starting inside his own 10 as well, so there is a balancing act for him.

I have seen people say the Colts only scored 17 points in their playoff losses in 2008 and 2009. Looking at this clears that up. The worst field position in any of the 314 games I looked at belongs to Peyton Manning's Colts in the 2008 Wild Card game at San Diego, where they had to start at the 15.67 on average. The Colts did manage to score 17 points that day. The second worst game also belongs to the Colts, and it is the big one: Super Bowl 44 last year (16.63 was their average start). They scored 17 points in that one as well. Steve Young's 16.70 game against the Packers in the 1997 NFC Championship is the third worst game, and the 49ers scored 3 points on offense that day. Touchdowns are harder to come by when the field ahead of you is so long. In the games I looked at there were 1080 drives started at least 80 yards away from the end zone, and only 182 (16.9%) ended in a touchdown.
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The whole article is definitely worth a read, but this little section caught my attention. I knew starting position for the offense was a major factor in why they lose games, but it's good to see someone actually back it up with stats.

So for all you assholes who want to keep calling Peyton a choker, BAM: Quarterbacks: Career Playoff Drive Stats

And for the tl;dr version so the haters can get a small taste of reality, here are a few things that also caught my attention:

- Manning is second (to Rodgers in a MUCH smaller sample size) in yards per drive in the playoffs
- Manning has averaged more points per drive than Brady in the playoffs
- Manning has averaged fewer 3 and outs than Brady in the playoffs
- Manning is 6th best in fewest punts per drive in the playoffs
- He is 7th best in fewest turnovers per drive (just a fraction behind Brady in 5th)
- He has the 7th fewest drives per game
- He also has the WORST STARTING FIELD POSITION OF ANY QB IN THE PLAYOFFS SINCE 1980. Just under 40% of Manning playoff drives started inside the 20 yardline.

Ok stats aside, the bottom line is this: QB's don't win games, TEAMS win games. So please stop accusing Peyton of choking away or underperforming in the playoffs because it's simply not true. The Colts have a lot of problems the least of which is Peyton Manning.

There, I've said my peace now you can choose to agree or continue to blindly hate on Peyton for no reason.
 
King Drunkard said:
Unfortunately for the Colts and their fanbase Bob doesn't play enough to warrant my anger with the way he plays, mostly because I sometimes forget he's even a member of the team. I don't like that he spears people and stuff at all. I like that he plays tough and plays every down as if it were his last, but imo cheapshots do not belong in the game, no matter who is doing it.

Thanks for the correction, yes I meant Clark. Not sure why I said Taylor. Either way, he's landed some pretty blatant headshots, and for that, I've lost all respect for him whether the league has fined him or not.

And you're probably right that I'm mischaracterizing these guys, but why shouldn't I? Even if they land a "dirty" hit one in a million times, if that one time is blatant then I have no other choice but to think they are a dirty player. Should I think they're completely innocent and have been wrongly judged? No, I don't think so. These guys have earned their reputation over a period of time, so it's going to be hard to persuade me into believing they're the victims in these situations.

Also, I don't think the whole team is dirty. In fact, I like quite a few Steelers players. I just think you're trying to defend the select few I've called out because you're a fan of the team, which is understandable.
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I can honestly say that I've never seen Ryan Clark touch anybody's helmet except Willis McGahee on the AFC Championship game 2 years ago (at least to my memory), and on that play 1) he was a runner and 2) that would have been hard as hell to avoid. I've NEVER seen him, or frankly any Steeler player since they got rid of Joey Porter, deliberately tackle anybody in a dirty or 'cheap' way, at least by my standards. I make a pretty big distinction between deliberate and accidental/unintentional. My problem with your categorizations is that you're calling players dirty and cheapshot artists as though this is regularly their intention, when I hardly believe that to be the case at all. Nobody on the Steelers is a Rodney Harrison or an Asante Samuel or Vince Wilfork of a few years ago (though both have played cleaner ball of late, at least from my experience, especially Wilfork).

And yes, of course a large part of my desire to counter your argument is because I'm a fan of the team and the players, I can hardly even attempt to deny that. But I'm still being honest with what I say, and I can honestly say that I don't see the way Harrison or Ward or Clark plays, game in and game out, as dirty or riddled with deliberate cheap shots. Every once in a while a bad tackle or a bad decision is made. But I feel like people take notice a lot more when it's a Steeler player than any other team, and obviously I think that's unfair. When you use a term like "cheapshot artist", at least to me, that signifies somebody that, on a regular basis, deliberately engages in extracurricular roughness, so honestly, the Steelers biggest cheapshot artist of the year would be Chris Kemoeatu for that stupid fucking flying headbutt he pulled in the Divisional game I believe.

I really wouldn't characterize any player in the NFL right now, based on what I've seen of them, of course, and in the last 2 years or so, of fitting that definition. I don't think that making on play that is flagged and fined necessarily falls under the "cheapshot" distinction because, to me, that implies intent, and the only Steelers fines this year that have had intent, as I see it, are Kemo's fine and Harrison's first fine on the sack of Vince Young. I don't know, maybe you're using these terms more liberally than I would or maybe we just have different standards of what constitutes things that don't belong in the game, or maybe a bit of both, but whatever, it is what it is.

Edit: Interesting article, but he's still 9-10. :p He's as much of a bad postseason quarterback as the Steelers are a dirty team.
 
Dodens Grav said:
words and whatnot
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I dunno, I'll keep an open mind from now on and see if maybe my previous opinions of these guys has been clouding my judgment. I'll be watching the Super Bowl and will probably be getting sauced since the Colts aren't playing in it to fight off a bit of the depression. But I'll make sure to pay attention to these particular players and report back what I see. That is if I remember anything.

Dodens Grav said:
Edit: Interesting article, but he's still 9-10. :p He's as much of a bad postseason quarterback as the Steelers are a dirty team.
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haha you bastard
 
It probably has something to due with the fact that every single time I play Madden against the Steelers my franchise loses at least one player to injury.
 
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